Benjamin Franklin once said, “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” Here at ATL Global Advisors we agree and invest both time and money into our continual growth as advisors and as a business.

Our passion for professional development led Kevin Myers and me, Gary Lutrick, to attend the annual Cetera Connect Conference last month. It was such a great experience that we want you to know about it as well. Here is a picture of us and our wives after one of the sessions.

Enjoying the evening with our spouses after a great day of interacting at the conference held at the Gaylord Hotel just outside our nation's capital.

What Is The Cetera Connect Conference?

First of all, what is Cetera? Cetera is the nation’s second largest independent financial advisor network by number of advisors and has been around since the 1980’s. All of the advisors at ATL Global Advisors are members of Cetera. The connections and resources available to us through Cetera have given both our business and our clients an incredible advantage.

One of those resources is a much anticipated annual conference. Every year, Cetera puts together an amazing Connect Conference that advisors from all over the country attend. It is a great opportunity to learn new approaches and keep abreast of what is going on in the industry. This picture shows one of the dinners, and you can see the number of people in attendance.

Dinner

A lot of effort goes into developing excellent general sessions, productive breakouts and enjoyable special events that are designed to challenge our thinking and help us grow.

What Did We Learn There?

This year’s conference in Washington, DC was no exception. The 2017 theme was “Advancing What’s Next” and it got us excited for the future. The focus was on looking at economic and other trends and how they impact investments, practice management, technology, peer group best ideas, and developing a better client experience, to name a few.

Panel Discussion

One of our favorite sessions was about disruptive technology and its possible impact on stock values. An economist and former Yahoo Vice President discussed how the lowered cost of solar generated electricity has brought it into direct competition with coal-fired electric plants. Such disruptions could have significant impacts on the markets.

Another very practical topic was planning for health care costs in retirement and its impact on retirement assets. We got a lot of information from that session that we will be able to immediately incorporate into the planning we do for clients.

What This Means For You

Like what we learned about planning for retirement health care costs, much of what we learned will directly impact our clients and the quality of service we are able to provide.

One thing we are constantly striving for at ATL Global Advisors is the perfect balance between leveraging technology and all of its benefits without losing the personal relationships that we and our clients value so highly. At the conference, we learned about developing strategies to integrate the two for a superior advice-centered client experience.

Hopefully, in the coming months, you will see evidence of our newfound knowledge as we put it into practice. We intend to take full advantage of online wealth management tools for our clients’ convenience without losing the human touch and personalized care.

We look forward to implementing the best ideas that we gleaned from the conference for your benefit. If you have any questions about the conference and what we learned there, we would love to discuss it with you. Feel free to email me at gary.lutrick@atl-ga.net or call 404-303-9994. I look forward to hearing from you and sharing some of my experiences.

About Gary

Gary Lutrick, MBA, RFC is a financial advisor and partner at ATL Global Advisors, an independent financial services firm serving transportation and logistics employees in the greater Atlanta area. Along with nearly 30 years of industry experience, he holds a MBA in finance and the Registered Financial Consultant (RFC) certification. He focuses on helping his clients plan for retirement, manage risk, and define financial objectives that integrate their family values. Learn more by connecting with Gary on LinkedIn.